Tough Crowd
Posted on March 25, 2008
Filed Under kids, parenting, suburban joys, snark, bat-ass crazy, bitching and moaning, challenges, volunteerism |
I was resolved to don my big girl panties and drag myself out of the doldrums. I’d been indulging my foul mood, wallowing in the mud of self immolation. I thought I was finished with all that. I felt ready to greet the new day but then there was the thing that happened at Elementary School. Leave it to a third grader, someone else’s third grader, to highlight the actual depths of my despair.
It was a fairly typical morning. I was up before the sun and tried creeping down to the kitchen to prop open my face with a big steaming cup of coffee WITHOUT waking the kids. But come 4 a.m., my children are primed and ready, actually lying in wait. One eye open, ears perked for signs of life. Just the sound of my breathing in close proximity to their bedroom rouses them.
We were ALL up before the sun.
It was longggg four hours. I have been cross and impatient with my children lately. Our 4 a.m. togetherness did not improve things much. But there was hope and light because it was Monday, Early Morning Sports Day, when the children are ferried to school by 8 a.m. to run around in the gym and spin off some reckless energy. I’d be alone and writing by 8:15. Just the thought of that sweet solitude was enough to get me through it.
We arrived at school promptly at 7:56 a.m. The kids were dressed in their best school clothes which is to say track pants and t-shirts, the ensemble that has become something of a uniform now that they are 6 and 8 and hyper-aware of the cool factor. I’m not sure who decided that sweaters and khakis and corduroys are the garments by which grade schoolers commit social suicide but I can tell you that the beautiful clothes I bought back in September haven’t seen the corridors of S. School. They are languishing forgotten and, now a size too small, while their athletic brethren get repeated wear. Over and over and over again.
I, too, was actually pretty put together for such an early hour seeing as the adorable Mr. S is in charge of Early Morning Sports and there is absolutely no way I was doing the drop-off without being fully made up and at least dressed in something other than fleece pajamas. I was wearing my own version of sports attire, prepared for a jaunt to the gym that I planned to allow myself after several hours of productivity. Yoga pants, UnderArmour hoodie, Mizuno running shoes. I was looking and feeling kind of sporty.
We were the first ones in the gym and we grabbed a basketball to shoot some hoops. It had been years since I’d played and it felt great to get that lay up going again, to hear the swish of the ball through the net. Never mind that O chucked up a shot while standing directly beneath the basket and took the rebound on his face. There were some sheepish, hasty tears. There was immediate swelling beneath the left eye.
Fifteen sweaty minutes later the gym was teeming with children who had been dropped on the curb. No other parent had bothered to actually accompany their kid into school. I was the solo helicopter-Mom compelled to actually escort her children through the heavy doors. And so, by default, I was the sole adult with twenty grade schoolers, spinning dervishes in the cold gym. Sadly, there was no sign of Mr. S.
By 8:15 a.m. it became apparent that the lovably disorganized, boyish teacher, adored by parents and children alike, was not going to show. I still had choices. I could have gone down to the office and requested they find a suitable replacement for Early Morning Sports instruction but there I was thinking, I can do this. I am woman, hear me roar. Now let’s get the fucking dodge ball going.
So I gathered the children around me and explained that since Mr. S was not coming, I was going to be the stand-in instructor. The children clapped enthusiastically. I grinned from ear to ear. I love sports. I tolerate children. I was feeling confident.
So we got busy right away and played a few versions of dodge ball and sharks and minnows and then some indoor soccer. I was careful to let the kids sort of free-form these games, though I secretly wanted to stop play every thirty seconds and explain the geometry of a corner kick and the need for a wall of bodies to prevent the other team from scoring on goal. I bit my tongue. I rolled with it. I did a lot of sprinting back and forth, hooting and hollering in my best imitation of an encouraging and energetic coach.
Eventually the bell rang and the kids scampered off to grab their backpacks and drink from the water fountain and get to class. Not one child, even my own, thanked me for stepping up and standing in. My O and G dashed down the hall without even a wave. But the real kicker, the true blow, was delivered by a fussy little nine year old who was exiting the gym fluffing her pigtails and adjusting her purple track pants. I heard her say as she turned the corner, (please imagine this delivered in the most haughty, little girl voice imaginable), Oh my God, she was just sooooo annoying.
Annoying? Annoying you say. You know what’s fucking annoying? The fact that your parents kicked your thankless little behind to the curb this morning without even checking to see if any adult was here to receive you. You know what’s annoying? The fact that Mr. S was clearly out sick but the entire administration spaced on the need for a sub for Early Morning Sports. You know what’s annoying? That I could have marched all you thankless trolls down to the cafeteria and handed you off to the monitors who would have made you sit there coloring in pained silence for forty-five minutes but instead ran the class myself. You know what’s annoying? That still, some twenty four hours later, no one, no child or adult or other human being, has even bothered to thank me for spontaneously setting aside an hour of my time, my fucking time, to play pied piper, to do the right thing.
Shattered, shattered I say. I’m crawling back into the hole from whence I came to lick my wounds and simmer. I promise, I should be fully recovered in a few days, just as soon as I plot my revenge on that little third grade imp with the saucy commentary, the cruel review. Tough crowd, that third grade, tough crowd.
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